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About the conference

Emerging priorities in mental health and addiction:
the Virtual World, Ageing and Migration

This is a one day conference to explore key issues facing us as researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

The conference will take place in St Andrews, Scotland in the Medical Sciences building of the university of St Andrews on 3rd of June 2016

Conference themes

The Virtual World: new connections, new communication, new training strategies, but also new addictions, new confusion, new usability challenges, new health inequalities: the digital divide, the digital gap.

Ageing: multimorbidity, the intersection of disability and experience, loneliness, increasing alcohol use; increasing living at home or maybe never going into an institution? And smart homes? Care via internet? But also: what will be the new contributions of this ageing population?

Migration: trauma; premigration trauma, migration trauma, post-migration trauma. A whole new world arriving. But is it new? Or has it always been there? Are our services equipped to handle these new cultures: not only from a linguistic point of view, but also in terms of culture, ethnicity, ways of talking, ways of being, ways of mental health. Health care: not just capacity but also diversity. Not just more of the same thing, but more of something else. What do we have to learn about mental health from other cultures? How do they cope? How do they cope with our coping strategies? Fighting stigmatisation & discrimination through promoting diversity. Will diversity create new forms of resilience. Escaping, fleeing, but also hoping, building, contributing. Equitable access. But access to what? Communities feeling swamped. Not in my backyard. But what in my backyard?

How to empower individuals and communities who are faced with these emerging priorities? How can we adjust mental health service provision to take these new issues into account, new problems, but also new opportunities, new worlds? To provide effective care pathways, what needs to change?

Join us in the beautiful setting of St Andrews for a day of discussion and debate, with plenary sessions and a range of opportunities for networking and learning.

This is a joint European Network in Training, Education and Research (ENTER)-Mental Health, and Social Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI) conference.